


Meta - Loki IS a Villain

by Caiti (Caitriona_3)



Series: Caitriona Opines on Fandom [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Gen, Meta, Not Loki Friendly, Redemption, Repentance, Villains
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-06
Updated: 2014-03-06
Packaged: 2018-01-14 17:14:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,765
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1274545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Caitriona_3/pseuds/Caiti
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Loki <b>is</b> a villain.  If you want to write him as a good guy?  You need the three R's.  (Not exactly Loki-friendly)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Meta - Loki IS a Villain

**Author's Note:**

> Please don't flame me. I love Loki as a villain, but some of his portrayals and ships just don't work for me and I wanted to explain why. It kind of blew up on me and well...here you go. (This was supposed to be a quick answer and it turned into all these words. Yikes.)

One particular issue I have with various fandoms from time to time is the tendency to take a charismatic villain and making them a good guy without a believable repentance and transformation. Actually…a lot of people skip that step altogether. It’s just kind of like ‘TADA! He’s a good guy now!’ without any explanation, not even the tiniest of flashbacks or consequences. (The ‘he’ is generic, but it’s almost always the charismatic men who are treated this way. I haven’t seen very many female villains treated in the same way. Or maybe it’s just the fandoms I read.) People are not going to like my opinion. Fine – I’m actually okay with that. That’s why it is my opinion. I don’t have a problem with redemption. I believe in it. I embrace it. Hopefully I live it. However, redemption does not just spring full grown onto the page. It requires another vital component.

Repentance.

We don’t like that word. It implies guilt. It implies personal responsibility. It implies a need to change. Unfortunately, without it? There can be no redemption and out fizzles any real attempt to turn our favorite bad guys into good guys. I don’t care how well-written your story. It is nothing but froth and foam without having the foundation/tether of honest repentance in the background. We are all for redemption – redeemed characters have the most interesting stories because writers can play with the background. It can give us some wonderful tension between characters and there is always the chance they might ‘go bad’ again. It’s got an edge we just don’t get from the ‘always an angel’ good guys. There is one thing to keep in mind when writing a redeemed character.

Without repentance, redemption is hollow.

Of course, repentance is not the first step. A villain is not going to wake up one morning and decide “I’m going to repent today” just because. It would be nice, but…huh? It is too impossible for real life, let alone fiction. I’ve seen things happen in real life that will never happen in fiction because it is too crazy to believe or make up, but not even real life will have a villain waking up from a sound sleep and deciding to repent. There must be a cause, a reason. They must come to an understanding – they did wrong and they need to make it right. 

It’s called recognition.

Think of it as the three R’s for transforming a villain into anything else – hero, anti-hero, even just an “Average Joe”. Recognition, Repentance, Redemption – without all three legs of the stool, the story will not stand up to scrutiny. They don’t have to be painted in big, bright colors; they don’t all have to take place “onscreen” as it were, but if you don’t have all three, then your character simply isn’t believable. Any character worth being called such will have depths to them, including the potential for this redeeming trifecta, but all steps have to be hit for the transformation to be a winner.

So, why is this topic on my mind?

All of my favorite websites, from tumblr to fanfiction sites, being overrun by Loki…specifically Loki as a good guy or Loki paired with one of the Avengers or their friends/people.

I cannot say a lot about Loki from the myths because I am not that familiar with them – except the tale of Baldr and the mistletoe. He’s certainly not in a good light there. The few times I saw him in the comics? He was a self-centered jerk – even when he seemed to be doing something ‘good’, there was always a deeper motive to put himself in a position of power, of ruling. He was a power-monger. From various levels of literature then, thus far I am not a fan.

Let’s take this to the movies. 

_Thor_ – Through a goodly portion of this movie, Loki is…difficult to pinpoint. A trait that is very fitting for the character in my opinion. He is stuck in his brother’s shadow and drawn to the magical, not physical arts. He finds out the truth of his heritage in the worst possible way. While all of this may mitigate some of his actions afterwards, it certainly does _not_ excuse them. He’s been given the rule of Asgard…if he behaved even halfway decently at this point, he could have had it all. He doesn’t. He goes down to Midgard and lies to his brother – telling him that Odin is dead and Frigga forbids his return – thus trying to assure his own power. In a further effort to secure power, he offers Laufey the chance to slay Odin – though he betrays the Jotun later. When Sif and the Warriors Three go to find Thor, he sends the Destroyer after them to eliminate all of them. (A bad move as this is where Thor earns his own redemption…because Thor wasn’t the shiny, shiny hero at the beginning either, but that’s another story.) After betraying and killing Laufey, he connects the Bifrost to Jotunheim and threatens to annihilate an entire race of beings. (Again, Thor proves his own redemption here by destroying the Bifrost – Asgard’s only means of travel and Thor’s connection to Jane.) Instead of accepting his error, he tries to explain away his actions, and when that is rejected, he apparently commits suicide rather than accepting his own mistake.

 _The Avengers_ – Loki still has some depth here, but with the team focus there is not enough time and space to really delve into his behavior, but we do have some clues. He is still a power-monger – though the Tesseract may have exacerbated things, it did _not_ create them (see actions in _Thor_ ). He makes a deal with Thanos and the Chitauri – he would become ruler of Earth (home planet of his brother Thor’s ladylove, please note) and they would get the Tesseract. He arrives on Earth and starts to enact his ‘glorious purpose’ – a world made free from freedom. “Freedom is life’s big lie.” Taking over the minds of both Erik Selvig and Clint Barton, he escapes from SHIELD and plans his next move. This part, the subjugation and control of two people, is one of his worst actions against an individual. (Obviously the afore-mentioned attempt to annihilate an entire race is pretty much in its own class as a horrific crime.) To steal someone’s life is a horrible thing. To steal their very self? To force them to act against their own nature? It is a form of mind-rape – death would have been easier. Especially dreadful since they seem to remember what they did while under his control. They will have to deal with the memories of what they did. Yes, it was him controlling them, but nightmares will show their hands and their efforts doing the actual dirty work. His move on the streets of Stuttgart, although mainly used as a distraction, is very telling. He demands the people kneel. They do so after he causes a shock wave and then he basically brags about it. One older man stands and refuses to kneel. (The older fellow’s comment “There are **always** men like you” was perfect – Loki’s behavior and actions are hardly new. There’s always someone wanting power over others.) After his capture, Black Widow points out that he has already killed eighty people in two days. He kills Coulson because Phil stood up to him. During the big battle, after he releases the Chitauri upon a basically unprepared Earth, he gets offered yet another opportunity to repent, but refuses.

 _The Dark World_ – this will be a lot briefer as I need to go back through the movie, but a couple of high points to note. Loki expresses no remorse in his actions – he doesn’t “see what all the fuss is about” and claims he was acting as a benevolent god. (He also no longer has any opening to blame the Tesseract for his actions at this point by the way). Frigga, who is the only reason he likely still lives, express concern and he brushes her off. Despite all he has done, his mother is trying to reach out to him and he doesn’t respond. He fakes his own death and takes Odin’s place in Asgard…no one the wiser. With Frigga dead and Thor gone, Loki sits upon the throne in Odin’s guise with no one to rein him in. While the movie doesn’t say much about Odin’s fate, interviews with Alan Taylor and Anthony Hopkins seem to indicate that Odin is dead…after Loki (disguised as an Asgardian warrior) brought news of “Loki’s” death. This is ominous.

Tom Hiddleston does a remarkable job of giving Loki charisma and a depth that makes you pause and consider. I think Loki is a wonderful villain because he can be such an up-and-down, variable type character. He’s not a “simple” villain – he has complexities and depths. He can tug at your heartstrings during some moments and make you flinch at others. It is important to remember though…

Loki is a villain. 

No question.

He never shows any remorse for his actions.

He is downright flippant about many of them.

If you want to write him as a good guy…heck, if you want to just write him as a not-so-bad guy, he _must_ go through the three R’s. If he doesn’t, then your version of Loki doesn’t hold water. People he has attacked, hurt, threatened to the extent he did on Earth are not simply going to fall in love with him unless he has that dramatic, to the depths of his being change. He pretty basically killed Thor (via the Destroyer) and mind-raped Erik – neither Jane nor Darcy are going to swoon at his feet without a pretty big redemption going on. (Neither will Sif or the Warriors Three, I’m thinking, considering they had to defy Loki to come after Thor anyway.) After his controlling of Clint, you can be for damn sure Natasha would be more likely to gut him than fall for him. This will quite obviously preclude any romantic interest from Clint as well. His murder (later fixed by AoS) of Coulson would ensure no love lost from Tony or Steve (or Pepper or Natasha or Clint or Fury or Hill). His plan to use the Hulk, to damage the Helicarrier and cause the deaths of who knows how many, would also alienate Bruce.

Recognition – Repentance – Redemption…an absolute requirement if you are going to pair Loki with any of the Avengers or their friends.


End file.
